


in life, love gnawed my skin to this white bone

by harsa (dearestwinter)



Series: Ragnarssons the Bikings [4]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Cold Weather, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Protective Older Brothers, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Sort Of, no beta read we die like ragnar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearestwinter/pseuds/harsa
Summary: “My b-body is warm, e-except my feet a-and hands,” Hvitserk stammers through his teeth.Ubbe snorts. “I meant sharing your body heat with someone else. They say you can save a life doing just that when there’s no way to make a fire.”//Or the one where winter hits Kattegat hard, and our favorite brothers share a bed to get warm.
Relationships: Hvitserk & Ubbe (Vikings), Hvitserk/Ubbe (Vikings)
Series: Ragnarssons the Bikings [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615831
Kudos: 26





	in life, love gnawed my skin to this white bone

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back on my hvitserk x ubbe ship and totally going down with it. titled by sylvia plath's "dialogue between ghost and priest".
> 
> comments make me so happy and get me to write more, so if you liked this fic please leave me one! kudos are great too.
> 
> i don't own anything, just in case.

Ubbe is woken by a clinking sound.

The room is barely lit by the dying embers of the fire. It must be quite late in the night, he thinks as he hears the wind outside, hitting the wood of the hut and making them creak and groan. The blizzard that had been going on for a few days now doesn’t show any sign of stopping any time soon. Winter had finally made its freezing cold appearance after a full season of ravaging storms that had made the people of Kattegat wonder what had they done to deserve the fury of Thor and his hammer.

The sound seems to come from his right. Ubbe has no wish to sit up and see what's causing it, warm under the heavy weight of the furs. Even then, the tip of his nose is numb exposed to the cold of the room. He should call for one of their thralls to bring more wood and make a new fire, but he doesn’t want to wake Hvitserk.

Speaking of Hvitserk.

As Ubbe’s senses sharpen now that he’s fully awake, he realizes the clinking sound is not much of a clink as a chatter. The chattering of teeth. Ubbe turns his head to the side, the room not dark enough that he can’t make out his brother’s soft features. Hvitserk’s loose hair is covering half of his face, but under it Ubbe can see the cold-induced flush of his brother’s cheeks. Hvitserk’s forehead is creased slightly as if he’s having a nightmare, and the rest of his body is trembling under the furs. Due to the round bulge Ubbe sees, he can easily guess Hvitserk is curled in on himself to keep his body warm.

“Brother,” Ubbe calls.

Hvitserk is not a light sleeper by nature, very far from it actually, but his dark green eyes open almost immediately at hearing Ubbe’s raspy voice. They’re glassy and muddled with sleep, and Ubbe’s heart twists inside the cage of his ribs when those orbs find him in the bed a few feet from Hvitserk.

“What?”, Hvitserk asks, producing smoke out of his mouth as he speaks.

Ubbe is not going to ask if he’s cold, the full-body shudder as Hvitserk expects his reply is clear enough to himself. He has to do something to warm Hvitserk up right now, so he can catch at least a few hours of sleep and  _ not  _ catch a fucking cold and wake in the morning with a fever.

Desperate times call for immediate measures.

“You know what’s the best way to get warm?”

Hvitserk frowns, probably thinking that Ubbe is wasting minutes of his own fitful sleep just to ask that question to someone. “No.”

“Body heat.”

“My b-body  _ is  _ warm, e-except my feet a-and hands,” Hvitserk stammers through his teeth.

Ubbe snorts. “I meant sharing your body heat with someone else. They say you can save a life doing just that when there’s no way to make a fire.”

One of them has to make a sacrifice walking the feet few to the other’s bed. Ubbe, as the big brother, thinks it must fall on himself. The cold feels like someone is pricking the soles of his feet and arms with tiny needles. He shivers as he tries to cross the short space between their beds in as few steps as he can. Luckily, Hvitserk sees him coming and immediately scoots over to make room for his brother.

In the blink of an eye, Ubbe is in Hvitserk's bed, laying on the warm sheets.

It takes them several seconds to find a position they’re both comfortable in. They end up on their sides, facing each other. Ubbe throws an arm around Hvitserk’s waist and brings him closer to himself, to press against his broad chest. Hvitserk’s facial hair tickles, and his equally cold nose brushes the skin of the crook of Ubbe’s neck. He succeeds in not flinching, his cheek resting on the top of Hvitserk’s head.

Still, Hvitserk’s body is rigid against him. The chatter of his teeth is gone, but the trembling remains. The hand resting on his brother’s lower back moves back to search for Hvitserk’s. He finds one of them between their bodies, the other under the pillow supporting his head and warming up already, and Ubbe takes it. 

“Shit, you weren’t joking,” Ubbe exclaims, actually checking that the digits aren’t beginning to darken with frost. They’re not, the fingertips barely tinged with red. “Can you flex them?”

“Why would I be joking about being cold, Ubbe?”, his brother asks as he does just that. He makes a fist quickly enough, so Ubbe lets it be, taking the hand back into his own two, and rubbing it to bring some heat back.

“To get me into your bed, perhaps,” he jokes.

Hvitserk smirks. “You invited yourself, brother, may I remind you.”

“Guilty.”

Hvitserk’s feet are next. Ubbe gets one of them between his own warmer feet, and rubs. His brother wiggles his cold toes against the soles of Ubbe’s feet, making him curse at the contrast of temperatures and the laugh that threatens to burst out of his mouth. Hvitserk does it again when it’s his other foot’s turn, and Ubbe can’t contain himself.

“You're so ticklish,” Hvitserk says against his neck.

“You know me, brother.”

“I do,” Hvitserk replies as if there’s no greater truth in the world. Ubbe knows it for a fact.

Their mouths find each other’s without thought. Ubbe’s tongue traces the chapped skin of Hvitserk’s bottom lip, smoothing it out. Ubbe pulls back slightly to admire his brother’s mouth, now red and glistening. He leaves a succession of pecks that trail from Hvitserk’s lips to his cheek and down his jaw, and stop at the warmth of his neck where it meets the ivory skin of his shoulder. Ubbe allows himself to breathe in on the smell of Hvitserk’s skin, familiar and comforting, before sucking a bruise on his collarbone where he knows no one except the two of them will see it.

Hvitserk moans above him, low and rumbling in his chest. Ubbe feels it, committing to memory the sound and feeling of his brother’s body pressed to his. They need to get some sleep after all, so his already half-hard cock will have to wait for another earlier time.

Hvitserk’s left hand, now warmed by Ubbe’s, finds its way under his brother’s shirt and rests on Ubbe’s chest, tracing the valleys of his abdomen absentmindedly. When Ubbe looks into his brother’s eyes, they’re once again glassy and dropping with the need to sleep so he lets him, pressing his lips to Hvitserk’s temple and wishing him sweet and warm dreams.

Ubbe stays up for a bit longer, just watching his little brother’s features turn even softer than they already are, warm and safe, until Hvitserk’s calm breathing gets him relaxed enough to feel sleep pulling at him too, and he gives into it completely.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://maegelletargaryen.tumblr.com) y'all.


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